James Chrisopther Hill - Artworks

James Christopher Hill - Artworks - www.JamesHillGallery.com

To invest in a cool board game - go hear now! Only 14 days left...
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/hullbreach/hull-breach-in-defiance-of-dictators-card-game?ref=nav_search
My latest animation....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XvbY5ZeiXEc

New App from www.Proko.com called SKELLY 2.0 upgrade came out today.  It's an AMAZING app for anyone wanting to draw the human figure (skeleton is completely articulated and can pose any way you think of).  The app even comes with various poses in a library ready to be adjusted for what pose you want! It's super easy to use! Highly recommended!

Over the past 2 years, I've slowly been studying advanced mathematical equations and formulas along with Sacred Geometry.  The two go hand in hand and Lately, I've been learning musical notes and music theory.  It's unbelievable the intricate mathematical formulas that are needed to make perfect harmony.  Studying the 12 sided Chord range is mind blowing including the diminishing 7th and the Flattened 5th chords and how music is tied to architecture, to astronomy, to chemistry and science and of course religion.  The tempo, the pace, the minors and the majors I'm still learning but this is helping me better understand the human and crate better paintings. 

I'm reading 3 books, Quadrivium, Sciencia, and Designa.  - they are loaded with increadible factual data that clearly demonstrates that the humans of old are just as smart or smarter today than the average person.  I've never liked math, but if you remember the question every kid asks...."When will we ever use math or need history?"  Everyday it seem now.

 I have a question. I did raise all of my original art 1.25% in September 15th, which, I will not budge on. Why, they are my children. Some are better paintings than others technically, some are better because they are made with extreme passion, (well, all of my children (paintings) were crafted with passion) - that's a given with a good artist that has given their life, blood and soul to their craft. Some are created in flashes of lightning when the lightning strikes, I know to move and jump at the chance and paint. Most if not all artists compare themselves with other artists just like I used to. I stopped because I realized one day that I'm a very good artist, maybe a great one, but after boasting those words, I'm still VERY humbled by the artists, younger and older than me that can draw and paint circles around me in figure, in painting, in landscapes, etc. I'm not the worst, I'm not the best. There are many artists that look up to my work and I look up to many artists works. There are various levels an artists finds themselves at in and throughout their lives. Many thousands of people have praised my work and loved what they saw but my work comes from has been blessed by the great creator who deserves the praise, I know that. My work has been called the best work they have ever seen and been moved by even though they have seen live, throughout various museums in the world the greatest paintings in history. A Hindu scholar and Doctorate once called my work the perfect combination of the Sublime and the Profane (meaning the best of both worlds; the profane is here, Earth, the Sublime are the heavens Shiva presides over in their faith). My art has been know to actually calm and sedate extreme cases of anxiety and other mental illnesses, some very serious. I don't compare myself or my work to anyone anymore. I'm done with competitions, I now look up to my contemporary masters and they me plenty of challenges for me to strive for, to strive for superior excellence in figure painting, clothing (yes, folds are hard), hands, feet, metal reflections, you name it. They are the mentors I look up to and they are legion (a lot), Tom Durham (www.TomDurhamSculpture.com), www..pjartworks.com (Patrick Jones), Proko (free really cool tutorials) you tube! - Tom Wood (www.TomWoodFantasyArt.com), Alex Nino, then there are the technical masters - Syd Mead, Joe Johnston (new Star Wars art director who did IV, V and VI) with the late, great Ralph McQuarrie, for whom, without his paintings, we would have never had Star Wars, Daniel Simon, Ryan Church, (all the incredible new comic artists that kick serious ass, Tom Fleming, Boris and Julie Vallejo, H. R. Giger, John Berkey, The late GREAT FRANK FRAZETTA (www.FrazettaGirls.com), Edward Reed - http://www.edwardreed.com/welcome.html, Dru Blair (Serious Realism to the maximum) - youtube - or google "This is not a photograph"....and more. Those words being said, these modern artist that live today and many more along with the great masters of the past five centuries, give me something to forever strive for. No artist is really the "best", there is no competition, there is only levels to strive for to become better and better. Most people give up feeling their work has to be "perfect" thanks to today's "competitive" world, when they should be focusing on practice, practice, practice and losing fear for they are creating work no one else in the entire universe can duplicate. There are no "judgements", only art, art that moves a soul, art that strives to make others think, relax, be reminded of magic and awe of creation and destruction, the wonders of the universe. I will say it's important, very important to practice the rules of art, then, and really only then, make your own rules. There is not such thing as perfection in art, only your heart, and your soul, which I will not sell, and hence I will not sell for a "discount" for my one of a kind in the entire universe or multi-verses, nine dimensions known now to modern physicists, probably more coming, quantum lives and theories, M-Theory, String Theory, etc. So if you are blessed enough to have one of my original paintings, take care of them, they will probably pay for your grandchild's house and land one day. I still know everyone in my head who has one and I am currently making an official provenance of records of who has what painting or series of paintings. All of this long winded speech said, I do sell prints, giclee's necklaces that I can give a discount on for they are reproductions, so, since there is a "Black Friday", anyone want to recommend an offer I can give they would like? I listen to people and their ideas for we artists, believe it or not, don't know everything. I am booked for the next several months on various commissions, so if you want an original creation, book cover, logo design, let me know so I can put your request and official down-payment and schedule of completion on my whiteboard. BTW, I do offer flexible lay-away plans for original art and all one has to do is lay down a percentage of a painting and it becomes a "held" piece until paid in full and they can own an original James Christopher Hill painting.

Now is your one and only chance to purchase one of the newest style and very limited highest quality art books in the world - They are limited to only 500 Signed and Numbered books of 120 of the Worlds BEST top Sci-fi/Fantasy Illustrators.  Each artist gets their own 2 solid pages on the best quality silk gloss stock paper - The one side is the actual art plate (Image) and the other side is the artists' bio, explanation of the particular God or Goddess they have chosen (only one artist can do a specific God and Goddess so no repeats, from around the world! - The more you give, the more you get.  Giving starts at $10 for investments, but watch the video and you will see what you can get for your money.  $120 buys the book, but invest more, and you get more - $3,000 gets you your very own Larry Elmore Original Painting! There will also be a one of a kind Lord of the Rings painting offered and much more depending on the donation.  - Check it out - ONLY 18 DAYS LEFT!!!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1523185609/gods-and-goddesses-vol-2-the-fantasy-illustration?ref=video

 

In case all of you are wondering where are my latest paintings, here's what's been happening. There is an old saying "Time to go back to to drawing board". It means if something is not working the way you want, try again, re-invent, learn, make mistakes, keep going back to the drawing board over and over until you get it right. Over the past six months, I've decided to focus my energies on perfecting and honing my skills as an artist to another whole new level of quality and detail. All of my life, especially when I was a kid, I used to draw in extreme details when I was 10, 11, 12, etc. I like accuracy but I got frustrated when I couldn't achieve quality work like I was first seeing by artists like Chris Foss, Joe Johnston, Roger Dean and Ralph McQuarrie. I would try with colored pencils, (fail, pastels, fail, markers, fail). I would use any and all drafting templates architectural, electrical, standard, etc and I had no idea about different grades of lead graphite from 6H to 6B range. I just took a no. 2 pencil and pushed it to the limits I knew. I tried acrylic and oil painting and got frustrated because what I saw in my head was NOT what came out on paper. I would draw over and over, paint over and over until I got something I was proud of. In High School in my junior year, I finally took an art class only to be told that me and another great artist, Edward Reed who sat across from me and became my best friend, "there was nothing they could teach us as we were more talented" than the teacher. It was a bit frustrating and the only thing that kept me sane was my friend Ed to "compete" with in a friendly "throw down the gauntlet style. We used to joke with each other after doing a carefully hand-drawn portrait, "Top that dude!", which of course we strived to do. We did good, especially with portraits but we were bored, we had reached a wall, a limit of what could be achieved. Without the proper teachers and influences to guide us, to push us to the next levels, we got stuck. Luckily Ed found airbrushing and started to learn from some of the world's leading airbrush artists and I discovered H.R. Giger and Syd Mead around the same time. No one told us the path to choose, we had to blaze our own. There were gateways to Hell we were forced to go through due to unforeseen circumstances and we persevered, but like a good Battleship like the Galactica, we took a heavy beating from the world of reality. Wrong place, wrong time, wrong influences. That's why I don't want to hear from the younger crowd today any excuses of why they can't achieve greatness. They have access to amazing teachers online, the web, the Gnomon School training, cool software and drawing boards (Wacom), and amazing programs both free and powerful or established, costly but effective programs that allow a person that has a home computer to do anything now. They have no excuses except they can pull the lazy card. You get what you put into it. You work hard to create great work and you stay humble so you can always learn from others and keep and open mind to listen to what the masters can teach you every day! So, here I am at 49, I've made a good career as a fairly accomplished artist. Guess what, I'm going back to the drawing board everyday to relearn the basics, the proper geometrics and mathematical formulas for not good but great drawing and sketching that will translate better to better, more high quality master works. In other words, I'm re-practicing and re-training my brain and my hands to learn better ways of creating the images I want and have wanted to create since I was a child and finally we have the ability, knowledge, experience and wherewithal to do so; to execute not good, but great pieces of art that will stop even more people in their tracks to say around the world "Have you seen this guy's work!?!!?" It's not an ego thing, it really isn't, it's personal, it's a challenge that was given to me and I accepted it when I was 10. It's now time to start "proving" it like never before. So, like Master Yoda would say, I have to unlearn what I've learned and learn the better ways, the correct ways that are the slightest nuance people see without knowing it in my works. It's what separates the good from the great. I will never be the "best artist in the world" - There is no such thing. There have been the trail-blazers in the past from DaVinci to Frazetta to the modern masters. I want to create work like they do with figures, with animals. I want to paint more like the quality and precision of Syd Mead, Ralph McQuarrie, Daniel Simon and Stephen Martinaire' and the raw passion and vibrancy of John Pitre and John Berkey. Finally if I can add the haunting mystery of Beksinski and H.R. Giger and combine that with the sheer raw talent of Frank Frazetta; I might have something I'm so proud of that I can go to my creator with like a child ready to show their parents - "Mom, Dad, Look what I made for you!". I love my work, the quality, the passion, the beauty but there can be so much more to create that's in my mind's eye. I've learned more in the past two months concerning the mass connection of music, mathematics, art and sacred geometry that I ever had before reading tons of books and while I continue to "re-learn" how to paint a human being like a master, there will be no rest for me. It's time to awaken the Sleeper and Rise from the ashes of Brimstone like a Phoenix and play Daedalus as Icarus flew too high. We can not be like Prometheus. We have to craw before we walk and we have to walk before we can dance. So I'm back to learning new and better techniques that ever before!

Here are some new sketches I created while studying a Gladiator Star Destroyer from a 4" model on November 6th, 2015. 

Soon, I'll start working on the fine art Oil painting.  - www.JamesHillGallery.com